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We have a brand new ATV 2 and just got a Netflix subscription. We've watched two movies so far. The first one played flawlessly and the second one has had multiple annoying pauses in which the buffering thing just spins and spins, sometimes for a minute or more. We're on the free one month trial right now but if this continues, I'm certainly not going to pay a monthly fee for it. But we bought the ATV mostly to stream Netflix. Anyone have any idea why this is happening? Could it be an issue with our modem? I really have no idea about these things. The modem is about two years old and we have high speed broadband internet, if that helps at all. I'd really like to know if this is what I can expect from Netflix or if it's possibly another issue going on.

Could be many things. I did note that you mentioned that your modem is two years old. Sometimes ISPs have changes or "enhancements" in their services which require updates to a modem. In my case, my provider upgraded our service to a deal where the 1st 50MB of data downloaded at a very high "turbo" rate and then throttled down to a lower (but still relatively quick) rate. Long story short, my issue wasn't with the change in speed per se, but in the new protocol/language/packaging/presentation of their data. The cable modem that came free with my service a few years ago was not able to be upgraded from the old DOCSIS 2.0 standard, to the newer DOCSIS 3.0 standard they were now using. It only caused issues with some things like large downloads or streaming full length videos stalling, stopping of getting interrupted. Apparently my ISP can push updates to client modems, but mine was too old to accept the new code. They didn't contact me about this, and I spent several weels messing with DNS server settings and a variety of other possible fixes. Finally I ruled out everything on my end, called them. The first thing they asked was what modem I was using and immediately told me it was known to have "occasional reliability issues in some cases" with their signal. Anyhow, I bought a new modem at Best Buy (the ISP offered to rent or sell me a new one, but at a high price). I plugged it in, called the ISP again, told them my modem make/model and they pushed through their update - no more issues.

This may not be the issue you have, but you can probably call your ISP and give them your modem information. That would at least let you know if your hardware was part of the issue. It might save you some time even if it isn't the root cause of your issues.

Good luck, and welcome to Mac-Forums!

Never judge a man, untill you have walked a mile in his shoes...
That way you'll be a mile away from him, and you'll have his shoes.

I had my (cough 7 year old) modem replaced a couple weeks ago, and when that didnt help, the cable company started testing the lines outside the house finding problems with the junction box at the top of the line, 8 houses up.

Also, if you have any WIFI G devices connecting and your Wireless Router is not a Dual-Band N, your streaming will tank as well.